


walking with you

by put-out-the-fire (Livinei)



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, also i bullshitted this whole thing don't fact check me please, basically fred and rog travel together like a couple of vagabonds and thats that, honestly idk really i was thinking of like bbc merlin aesthetic but without magic, inns are fun, ive been referring to it as the medieval fic in my head but dont come for me, ive no idea, rog ran away from home and i guess fred did too but with dif vibes, there's some alcohol involved and it's honestly the highlight of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 07:50:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20850005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livinei/pseuds/put-out-the-fire
Summary: “Do you like travelling alone?” Freddie asks him just as Leeside’s first houses start coming into view, after they’ve somehow dragged a four-day journey at most out to last a week.Roger can’t think of an answer. He’d have had no problem saying yes to that question to anyone he’s met on his travels so far. He has, a few times. But now, it won’t come over his lips.“I don’t know.”“Do you mind if I keep walking with you?”





	walking with you

**Author's Note:**

> alright so im not gonna lie i'm personally not super into how this turned out, it's not my favourite thing i've written but i'm tired of writing it and sometimes at some point ya just gotta go 'fuck it', you know? that being said it's not completely awful (...i hope...) and there are some parts that i also do really like how they turned out so! read and check out for yourself!

Just one of those things. 

For all the treasonous damning of kings and lords they did, fathers weren’t far off being little kings of their own. After all, what’s the difference between being beaten by a knight or by your father? There’s none, really.

Especially when your dad has trouble knowing when to stop.

_ Just one of those things. _

But even when your dad doesn’t know when to stop, he still expects you to be up with sunrise the next morning and do the work of ten men, until you taste blood, and pushes you to your breaking point when you can’t anymore, and when you’re broken he’ll be mad and might blow up at your sister who’s only fifteen. 

“Just one of these days,” Roger smiles at Maude when she furrows her brows at his purple-bruised limbs and tired eyes. Maude is lovely. Roger’s sure Maude is probably old enough to be his grandmother’s grandmother, but he doubts she’ll die in the next two hundred years. She lives in a hut a bit out of the village and Roger goes to her a few times a week because she keeps chickens and he gets eggs in exchange of helping her bring water from the creek and bringing in firewood. She’s not surprised. But she looks at him with sad eyes when it’s one of these days. At least, Roger would like to think it’s sadness and not pity. But she smears something that smells of herbs on the painful raw bruises on his back and sides, and it helps. To a degree.

It’s just life, Roger knows.

And life is miserable. Life doesn’t feel fair. Life feels pretty fucking awful. 

It’s just how things are. But things have been that way for as long as he can remember, and the longer it goes on the harder he finds it to see the point. The point of caring. They say loyalty to your family is almost as important as loyalty to your king, and that listening to your elders is important, but Roger feels less like listening with every day.

“I want to leave, sometimes,” he admits to Maude once. It’s not one of these days. But it hasn’t been long since one, and it won’t be long to the next one. It never is. 

“So why don’t you?” she asks him without looking up. He sets the wooden bucket down and gives her a quizzical look. 

“Where would I go?” he frowns, and she raises her eyebrows. With the amount of wrinkles on her old face he can barely tell. 

“Away. Wherever you want. You’ve got young legs, son,” she says, turning her eyes back to her mortar and pestle. 

“I can’t leave Clare with him,” Roger sighs, “And taking her with me is dangerous. I’m not gonna be able to protect her from anyone who has a sword or more than one buddy at the side. Though I guess I could...cut her hair short and disguise her as my brother, maybe. I don’t know, it’s risky.”

Maude doesn’t look up again, but Roger thinks something in her face changes. Or maybe it doesn’t. She’s hard to read. 

“Village folks never come around here,” sounds her cryptic remark, and Roger supposes she’s decided to change topics. “I think they might’ve forgotten I’m even down here.” 

He leaves in broad daylight, in the end. Father sends him to Glasshurst, the next little town over, to get a new sickle. 

“Be back by morning,” his dad grumbles with a spit at the ground, not bothering to look at him, eyes already trained toward the village tavern. 

“I won’t make it this quickly,” Roger states with a blank face, saying what he’s sure they both know anyways. 

“Not if you’re still standing around, you won’t,” his dad replies, already facing away from him. “You’ll make it if you try hard enough, you’ve got young fucking legs.”

Yes, he does, doesn’t he? Except then Roger doesn’t hear the voice that he associated with shouting at him, he hears a softer voice which sounds a little bit off due to lack of teeth, telling him the same thing, but telling him he can go away. 

His father goes to the tavern. Roger goes home, grabs an empty satchel and Clare’s hand, and leaves. 

He leaves Clare at Maude’s hut, because it was true, village people never do come to where she lives. Clare will be safe here. Safer than with him.

Setting off from Maude’s with his bag now containing two loaves of bread, the coins he was meant to buy the sickle with, a whetstone and a knife, Roger starts walking in the opposite direction of Glasshurst. He doesn’t look back. 

He doesn’t look back, and life starts feeling a little less miserable.

Life on the road isn’t rocket science, but there’s many rookie mistakes to make. Roger’s a quick learner. 

He stays away from big roads, avoids large towns, and keeps his eyes on the ground when soldiers ride past. It keeps him out of trouble some of the time. Soldiers are a lofty and insolent bunch. 

He does quick works here and there when he passes by, in exchange for money or, in many cases, some food and a permission to stay in their stables for the night. 

People aren’t malicious, but they’re distrustful. Roger doesn’t take it personally. In a society where it’s every man for himself, not trusting people can serve you well a long way. Especially when he’s not exactly guiltless either. Setting foot from home with nothing but an empty bag meant he needed some things, and he needed to keep his money for more emergent instances. The fact that he doesn’t like stealing doesn’t change the fact that the light cloak on his shoulders isn’t his. He tries to keep his thievery as minimal as possible. 

When people tell him he can’t stay the night, he finds he can stay anyways. He just climbs up to the hayloft of the stables after the family’s gone asleep. He finds soon after that that asking for permission when he doesn’t intend to ask the family for anything else is more a pointless endeavor than anything else.

It’s his own carelessness, really, being caught. Normally he wouldn’t trespass before he saw the lights in the house be blown out. But he was tired, and the last few days’ windy weather had left him with a light cough that made his head ache, and he just wanted to lay down. There was no one in sight, so he sneaked into the stables and made his way up the ladder, falling asleep as soon as he curled up against the haystack. 

Roger wakes up at a creak of the ladder and opens his eyes just in time to see a head of black curls reaching just barely past the boy’s chin poke over the top of the ladder. For a moment he doesn’t remember why there is something wrong with this situation. 

“Easy,” the boy tells him with a hushing voice and raises his hand a bit in a placating gesture when Roger scrambles to get on his feet, eyes wide and mind racing. The boy climbs a few steps higher and stops, eyeing him warily but with some curiosity and, Roger thinks, concern? Not overflowing, but a little. He might be imagining it. 

“Who are you?” the black-haired boy asks, and if Roger wasn’t so preoccupied preparing to escape should things get ugly, he’d find the dark eyes difficult to look away from. 

“My name’s Roger,” he remembers to reply, relaxing a bit when the other one doesn’t seem particularly threatening – or threatened, aside from a healthy dose of caution that Roger can’t blame him for. 

“I’m Freddie,” the boy – Freddie, apparently – says to him, eyes roaming over Roger’s huddling figure. Roger can’t help but find it a bit endearing that he’s introducing himself when Roger’s intruding in his home. 

“What are you doing here?” Freddie asks, and Roger hugs his satchel a little closer.

“I’m sorry,” he says, throat feeling scratchy as he speaks. “I was just going to sleep here and be gone by sunrise.” 

“You’re travelling then,” Freddie mutters, almost as if to himself, and Roger finds himself nodding. Freddie doesn’t seem angry, and Roger lets himself focus on studying him a little closer. Freddie doesn’t seem much older than himself, perhaps by a few years. The grey linen shirt he wears isn’t all that different from Roger’s own, but there are little white patterns stitched into it at the collar. In the dim light his eyes seem black, and Roger feels like they’re looking through him. Somehow it doesn’t feel invading.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by another question.

“Where do you come from?”

“Oh, uh– far south of here, nameless village. I’ve been on the road for...a few months, probably,” he says, hesitant, and twiddles his fingers a bit. “Is it August? I left at the end of spring.” Freddie raises his brows in surprise as he nods.

“You’re long ways from home,” he hums, resting his chin on the palm of his hand, and Roger feels his anxiety ebb away a bit. There are many kind people, he knows that. He’s just used to always being wary of the worst. It’s safer that way.

“Where are you travelling to?” 

“I’ve no set destination,” Roger smiles a bit without really meaning to, “Just going wherever the road takes me.” 

_ Speaking of going… _

“Hey, uh, I’ll find another place to spend the night if you don’t want me to be here,” he says, face turning apologetic. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Roger realizes it’s the first time in a while he’s feeling bad about not asking permission before staying.

To his surprise, Freddie’s eyes widen and he raises his head from his hand. 

“No, it’s alright,” he hurriedly says, and casts a look downwards, stepping down a step on the ladder before turning his eyes to Roger again. 

“Are you hungry?” 

Roger could leave while he goes into the house, Freddie knows. He could decide that he’d rather play safe and slip into the woods when Freddie went to quietly get some food for him trying to not disturb Kash or Jer who were already sleeping. At least his father isn’t home right now, having gone for the nearest citadel town two days ago. 

Freddie fills a bowl with leftover porridge and cuts a few slices of bread to accompany it. He puts a kettle above the still-hot coals in the fireplace when he remembers the somewhat noticeable rawness in some parts of Roger’s voice and the cough that led him up to check the hayloft in the first place. 

Roger’s still there when he climbs back up the ladder, carefully balancing the bowl and the cup with one arm while holding onto the rungs with the other one. He looks somewhat nervous for a moment, eyes flickering down to the ground floor when Freddie comes up as if expecting someone else to follow him, but he’s still there. Freddie feels a wave of gladness at the realization that Roger had decided to trust him.

He sits down cross-legged in the hay some four feet away while Roger eats, and uses the moment to have a better look at him while he’s occupied. Roger’s skinny, though not quite starved-looking, but his face has soft lines and kind eyes that might be blue or gray, Freddie can’t quite tell in the muted lighting. The long blond locks framing his face could easily pass him off as a girl if he wore something else. The cloak he’d been using as a blanket when Freddie first found him looks too thin to be sufficient all nights around this time of the year. It was a poor summer all around, but with autumn starting to roll in it’s been getting rainier, and colder.

Roger’s a nice person, Freddie finds when he stays longer to talk to him. The caution both of them had for each other melts away surprisingly easily, and Freddie doesn’t even notice when the moon’s already risen up to the highest point of the sky. Roger’s a strange combination of witty and soft-spoken, and Freddie finds that once they’ve started to talk it’s difficult to stop smiling.

“It didn’t feel like a home. So eventually I found no point it staying,” Roger says with a shrug in response to his question of why he left home. He smiles, but there’s something in his eyes that Freddie doesn’t like seeing there. It doesn’t feel like it should belong there. 

He makes sure not to ask about home anymore.

Roger talks about his life on road though. Freddie suspects he’s probably downplaying some parts and over-exaggerating some other parts, but he doesn’t mind. They make for an entertaining listen. 

Something underlying sticks out to him though.

“It sounds like a lonely life,” he absently says when Roger falls silent, and for a short moment, something in Roger’s face looks painfully vulnerable in a way that makes Freddie’s heart twist a little.

“It’s not so bad,” Roger shrugs and softly says, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I’ve never really thought about it, I guess.” 

Freddie hopes that’s true. He doesn’t know if he believes it.

He doesn’t sleep well for the remainder of the night. He lies awake in his bed and the thoughts of Roger’s little tales swirl around the knowledge that he’s just short of twenty-three and should be moving out of his parents’ home, and the ever-urging remarks of both his mom and dad of how it’s time he found a  _ wife,  _ and he knows they mean well but it makes him slightly queasy in a way that he knows he shouldn’t be, and the look that flicked in Roger’s eyes when Freddie mentioned loneliness.

“Where will you go next?” he asks Roger the next morning when he finds, with a little burst of excitement, that Roger hasn’t left before anyone’s woken, as Freddie somewhat gathered he has a habit of doing. 

“What’s west of here?” Roger asks, with a little smile that Freddie wishes he could see for a bit longer.

“Basingate, that way,” Freddie says, thinking for a moment. “Quite nice, not  _ huge _ but probably the largest town within a fifty-mile radius. Has a fancy citadel.”

“Cheers, not that way then,” Roger says with a little grimace, and Freddie can’t help but chuckle a bit.

“Why not?” 

“Big towns have soldiers. Citadel towns have soldiers. And I like avoiding those.”

“Alright, understandable,” Freddie muses, and points in another direction.

“There’s Leeside that way, but it’s farther. Ten times as big as this village, maybe. Pretty average. Few days walking.” 

“Then I guess I’m going to Leeside,” Roger says, and something strange slides over his face along with a grateful look. “Thank you for letting me stay, and for the food, I appreciate it.” 

Freddie smiles, and shakes his head. 

“Mind if I walk with you a bit?” It slips out before he even thinks about it. 

Roger looks pleasantly surprised, Freddie thinks, because he doesn’t quite dare claim it’s happy. 

“Be my guest.” 

They talk a lot.

Neither of them say anything about miles and hours passing and Freddie still not turning back. At nightfall, they turn off the road and into the woods, make a small fire, and Roger wordlessly hands Freddie a half of the smoked ham and part of the loaf of bread he takes from his satchel. 

They keep walking in the same direction the next morning.

Freddie is easy to like. He has a sweet laugh and a way with words that seems almost effortless. The more concerning part is that he’s also incredibly easy to trust. 

Roger isn't as concerned about it as he thinks he probably should be. 

_ ‘We get along,’ _ he thinks. He doesn’t make many friends on the road that are around for more than a few hours at best. Freddie hadn’t been wrong in his assessment of this kind of life getting lonely. 

Leeside feels like a milestone that he doesn’t feel like he wants to reach. Because it feels like that’s the point where Fred would turn back at the latest.

And Roger feels selfish for not wanting to be left alone yet.

“Do you like travelling alone?” Freddie asks him just as Leeside’s first houses start coming into view, after they’ve somehow dragged a four-day journey at most out to last a week.

Roger can’t think of an answer. He’d have had no problem saying yes to that question to anyone he’s met on his travels so far. He has, a few times. But now, it won’t come over his lips.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you mind if I keep walking with you?” 

He grows used to Freddie’s company faster than he’d like to admit.

It might be around mid-September when Roger comes from the river to their little campsite bare-footed and steps on the adder. It  _ hurts _ , it hurts so bad he can barely walk, hopping the rest of the way while holding onto Fred’s shoulder. 

The bite marks bruise, his foot feels like it’s throbbing and his skin’s feverishly hot by the evening.

And despite the freakish trust inside Roger’s heart, the skeptical  _ expect the worst _ part of his mind reminds him how now would be the perfect time to leave. To go back home, or to take Roger’s things from him and leave him behind because he’s in no state to stop him or catch up to anyone. 

Freddie’s still there in the morning, using a damp cold cloth to gently dab Roger’s sweaty forehead, and something warm, buzzing, and touched and entirely unrelated to the snake bite plants itself into Roger’s chest.

When Fred looks him straight in the eye and gives a reassuring little smile, Roger’s heart speeds up.

He blames it on the fever. 

They spend more time in towns after autumn kicks into full drive and when after it the snows start falling. Inns become their place to spend the night more often than forest campfires. 

It’s one such evening as they stumble in from the sticky snowfall outside, seeking shelter. They aren’t the only ones with the same idea, as the tables seem crowded and the lady behind the bar looks tired. 

“Evening,” Roger greets as they reach the bar counter, wiping snow off his shoulder, and Freddie gives a polite smile and a nod as well, but finds himself looking at Roger more than the woman. 

Freddie can’t say he likes the cold, but he can appreciate how pretty Roger’s cheeks are after coming into a warm room from the unfortunate temperatures. The soft candlelight of the lanterns dances on those lovely red cheeks, casts dark shadows of his eyelashes on his face, and does something almost magical to his eyes. Freddie’s breath gets caught in his throat. 

“Any rooms available tonight?” Roger asks, and the woman gives a little nod, sending them a quick smile between handing out a plate of mashed potatoes to a man whose face is barely visible though his beard, and filling someone’s goblet. “There’s just one left, but I’d be quick about it if I were you. Some of these people haven’t booked a room yet.” 

“We’ll take it,” Freddie says, and Roger nods along.

  
It’s a shabby room, but within expectations for the cheap price. The window keeps the wind out, it’s warmer than the outside, there’s a washbowl, and the blanket is barely thicker than a sheet of parchment but it's clean and only one corner seems to have been chewed on by rats.  _ The _ blanket, because there’s one blanket. There’s one blanket, because there’s one bed. 

_ It's not a big deal, _ Freddie thinks. They've slept side by side before, next to their campfires, on the forest floor, in haystacks. It's the same thing, it’s not that different, he tells himself.

It feels different.

They don’t mention it. Roger merely chuckles and agrees when Freddie makes a comment about how in need of a break the lady of the house looked, and they exchange a look when the lively cheers of the rowdy bunch downstairs reach their room. It’s not a surprise, given that the walls are thin and there had been more cups than plates on the tables, but Freddie latches the door after hanging his cloak on a peg, and Roger nods a little. The lady did say some of them didn’t have a room. And some of them are probably too drunk to not barge into the first random unlocked room on their way.

They climb under the blanket on the opposite sides of the bed, not quite awkwardly far enough to be at risk of falling off the edge, but there’s a man-wide gap between them that feels strange and out of place, and the blanket doesn’t seem to be meant for this kind of a stretch because it’s a couple inches short of reaching the mattress on Freddie’s outer side, and it’s the opposite of comfortable. 

He isn’t the only one with this problem, it seems, because Roger squirms around a bit, and then Freddie can hear him sigh. 

“This is ridiculous,” Roger mumbles, and scoots closer to the middle of the bed. Freddie, relieved, follows the example, stopping an inch short of his upper arm touching against Roger’s. 

“My bloody shirt is thicker than this blanket, I think,” Roger adds with a hushed voice, and Freddie thinks he might just be trying to fill the silence to make everything less strange, but a part of him appreciates it nonetheless. He chuckles a bit in response before closing his eyes.

They’re awoken in the middle of the night by a loud thump and rattling of the door. The latch Freddie had locked does its job well, and the drunken groans on the other side of the door start shuffling farther down the corridor in pursuit of an unlocked room. 

It takes Freddie a moment after they’ve left to make eye contact with Roger’s sleepy gaze and realize that contrary to how they fell asleep, Roger’s head has been resting on his chest with an arm draped over Fred’s stomach. He realizes it when Roger pulls away and lies his head back on the pillow, and feels hollowly disappointed for a moment, but then Roger stays close enough to press his forehead against Fred’s shoulder and loosely hug Freddie’s arm close to his chest, like a child with a toy. Roger’s asleep again within minutes, if his deep breaths are anything to go by. Freddie’s racing heart keeps him awake for a little while longer.

He wakes up before Roger the next morning. His arm is still being held hostage, and Freddie gathers up immeasurable willpower to gently peel Roger’s arms off of him. He puts his half of the blanket over Roger before quietly putting his trousers and boots on, and quietly exits the room.

It’s quieter downstairs than it was the night before. Some drunk people are sleeping under the tables, and a few awake in a far corner of the hall haven’t stopped drinking to go to sleep yet, but they’re too few to cause a huge racket. 

“Morning! Breakfast?” the woman behind the bar says, and Freddie nods as he sits down at an unoccupied table. 

“Thank you, uh–” he starts when she sets down a plate in front of him, before realizing he doesn’t know how to address her.

“Jocie,” she fills in with a quick smile and wipes her hands on her apron before crossing them over her chest and gives a conversational look. Freddie supposes it must get annoying to have to spend most of her time speaking to people who can barely stand upright. “None o’the folks caused any trouble last night, I hope?” 

Freddie shakes his head.

“No,” he replies after swallowing a mouthful of porridge, but reconsiders then. “Someone did try to get in at one point, I suppose he could be somewhere under these tables right now.”

Jocie clicks her tongue in a disapproving manner and shakes her head. 

“I can believe that of them ruffians. Didn’t scare the lady, I hope?” 

Freddie stops to frown. 

“What lady?” 

“The- Oh, sorry,” Jocie looks embarrassed, and apologetic, and Freddie snorts as he understands. He can almost see Roger’s eye roll if he were down here.

“You won’t be the last to make the mistake, I imagine,” he tells her, and she seems relieved he’s not offended. “And no, ‘the lady’ barely woke up.” He adds, suffocating the little flutter his heart makes when he remembers Roger’s head on his chest. 

“Was the room alright then? I’d offer to swap it for one with two beds but there’s still no available rooms, sorry.” 

“One bed is better than no bed, we’ll make due,” Freddie says with a smile that he hopes looks neutral, and focuses his gaze on his plate in case it doesn’t. 

The snowfall gets heavier that day, which would have been nothing, but the wind also picks up, so they end up staying another night. Jocie ends up giving both of them meals on the house, as thanks for Roger offering to help with carrying the barrels and crates from a carriage into the inn. 

Roger can’t stop feeling like there are hot coals glimmering in his chest and radiating warm shivers along his spine whenever Freddie looks at him. It’s getting almost ridiculous. And it’s hard to distract himself from. Roger doesn’t really remember many details of the interruption that night aside from the fact that someone banged on the door, but he does remember the feeling of being unusually close to him. 

He can’t for the life of him figure out whether that was something actual or something his befuddled mind had mixed up, and Freddie hasn’t mentioned the incident, so Roger doesn’t bring it up either. 

_ Bad idea, you barely keep it together while sober, _ a part of his brain whispers when that evening both of them end up sitting at a crowded table of men they don’t know (but remember some faces as the main noisemakers from last night) with cups thrust into their hands after a roar of  _ ‘Joce, make it a round for everyone! _ ’ But the sizzling feeling in his chest spikes up again as Freddie next to him lets out an awkward chuckle and a hesitant shrug, taking a sip from his cup, and the snippets of maybe-memories of clinging to him last night twirl rudely in his mind, so Roger laughs along and raises the cup to his lips.

It’s not that bad. The rowdy bunch ends up being a lot more fun to be around when you’re drinking with them, and Roger and Freddie find themselves laughing along to most things. And the group is not slow on pouring out a new one whenever someone’s cup gets half empty. 

Roger soon forgets what he was nervous about.

Freddie doesn’t remember how they’re suddenly in their room now. But he thinks they were climbing up the stairs a few moments ago – or was it longer? – and somehow didn’t tumble back down face-first, so that might have been it. 

“Is this...is this our room?” Roger asks through a fit of giggles after plunging down onto the bed, which might have been a choice but might just as well have been due to him tripping over his own feet. 

“I don’t,” Freddie starts, but is cut off by the laughter bubbling up his chest, “I don’t know but–”

He fumbles with the latch of the door almost embarrassingly long, half using it to keep himself standing, but gives the door a triumphant look when he finally gets it locked and turns around to give the same look to Roger who’s managed to sit up again.

“But if it’s someone’s...someone else’s, they’re. They’re staying out there,” Freddie finishes his sentence impossibly slowly, drawing out every word to make sure he says it right, and Roger doubles over with laughter. Freddie somehow makes it to the bed without losing his balance and toppling over, crawling forward on his hands and knees to reach where Roger’s sitting, and settling down next to him.

Even when everything else is blurry, Roger’s bright eyes stay surprisingly in focus. Freddie doesn’t complain.

His mind is fuzzy and round around the edges, but every nerve in his body is pleasantly buzzing, and the bundle of warmth that sits in his chest is somehow even more prevalent than when he’s sober. He doesn’t know why he thought it would dull. Everything else sure has. It seems funny he thought it, now. Everything seems funny now. 

Roger reaches over the edge of the bed and takes the leather flask from his bag (on take two, because he drops it at first, which sends Freddie into hysterics). He struggles to get the cork off, and after three seconds hands it to Freddie with a miserable sound, who somehow pries the cork off. Some of the water spills out as he accidentally squeezes the flask while handing it back to Roger, and both of them wheeze.

Just when Freddie starts thinking he’s got his laughing under control, Roger starts drinking, and Freddie finds himself cackling again at the sight of the muscles of his throat moving. It’s contagious, and Roger chokes out a mouthful of water as he starts laughing as well. 

“What’ryu laughin’ ab’t?!” he cries out, shoving the cork back on the bottle and letting it drop back to the floor. Freddie keeps snickering and leans his body a bit closer, suddenly feeling an urge to raise a hand and touch him. He can’t remember any reasons he shouldn’t.

“It’s just,” he manages to squeeze in through laughter, gently tracing his fingers over Roger’s adam’s apple, the other hand gripping his knee to keep his balance and not fall into him, “So funny how it...how it moves when you swallow.” 

Roger breaks into a burst of giggles, and his eyes are wide open and shiny, and his cheeks are flushed from the alcohol, and he’s not swatting Fred’s fingers away from his neck, and one of his hands comes to rest on top of Freddie’s hand that’s on his knee, and the thing in Freddie’s chest is  _ burning _ . 

Through his fuzzy mind he’s realizing how close together they are. 

Freddie doesn’t know a whole lot in that moment, if he’s perfectly honest.

He doesn’t know what’s urging him to lean closer, he just knows that he wants to, and he knows that Roger’s hand tangles into his hair when he leans closer, and then he’s gently pressing his lips against Roger’s throat where his fingers had been a moment ago. 

He feels Roger chuckle, and grins against his skin, pressing another light kiss onto his neck and feeling Roger’s other hand grip his shirt. 

It feels great. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t done it sooner.

“You’re supposed to– to do it up here, usually, I think,” Roger giggles, and Freddie lets out a bubbly laugh, putting a sloppy kiss on Roger’s cheek before leaning closer to his ear.

“Well maybe I want to do it everywhere, smartass,” he murmurs, even through the haze in his mind managing to keep his voice quiet enough to not hurt Roger’s hearing. Roger’s arms wrap around his body, hugging him closer. “You’re not supposed to steal either, don’t tell me how things are supposed to be done,” Freddie adds with a grin, and Roger lets out a gasp, giving a playful slap on Freddie’s back and leaning back to lay down on the mattress and cross his arms over his chest.

“Meanie,” he whines, and Freddie leans down to hover above him, Roger’s arms wrapping around him again. His eyes are so blue.

“Why haven’t we done this before?” Roger asks, and Freddie hums a bit.

“I don’t know,” he replies, and Roger gives a warm smile when he looks him in the eye.

Freddie doesn’t think twice before closing the distance between their lips.

The first thing Roger knows is that he feels like  _ hell _ . The second thing he knows is that he was feeling the opposite of that last night. The third is that there are arms around his body holding him tight and close against someone.  _ ‘Interesting.’ _ Roger doesn’t feel like opening his eyes.

Last night starts coming back to him in hazy bits and pieces, slowly taking shape and form and turning clearer with every minute, and suddenly Roger can hear his heartbeat in his ears as loud as a drum as his whole body feels hot and cold at the same time. 

_ ‘Oh no.’ _

He doesn’t remember fear as distinct as the one he feels now. He’s so afraid that he almost doesn’t feel afraid. 

He doesn’t know what to do.

But he does know how to open his eyes, so he does. And regrets it almost instantly, because the room, while dim, is still too bright for his liking. Oh, and Freddie is awake.

“Morning,” Roger breathlessly manages to get out after two seconds of silence, the absurdity of this situation erasing every other word aside from that from his vocabulary. He sees Freddie’s little smile in response but doesn’t process it.

God, he’s  _ terrified _ . And at the same time for some reason Fred’s arms are still around him and he’s  _ awake _ and Roger wants it to keep being this way so bad, and he’s _ scared _ , and his brain is feeling overwhelmed trying to balance the fear of something being irreversibly fucked up with trying to make sense of Fred still holding him. He feels guilty for enjoying it. His heart is beating so fast it must be on the verge of stopping.

“Are you angry?” Freddie quietly asks, not without a little grimace of pain himself as he speaks, and Roger’s spiraling thoughts halt. 

“No,” he mumbles, and Freddie blinks slowly. Roger barely dares to breathe.

“Are you glad?” Fred asks next, and Roger’s eyes widen. Freddie’s eyes are trained on his face, and Roger doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what he’s asking exactly, doesn’t know what the right answer is. 

Is he glad it happened? He doesn’t know, because he doesn’t know how this conversation is going to play out. Did he enjoy it? Well, he knows the answer to  _ that _ , but he’s too afraid to say.

But Freddie seems to read it from his face anyways, and something in his eyes shifts. 

“Rog,” he softly mumbles, and Roger’s heart skips a beat. “You asked last night why we haven’t done anything like this before.” 

Roger nods, too overwhelmed to do anything else.

“Why haven’t we?” 

Fred’s voice is the gentlest he can ever remember it being, and it’s hard to be afraid of it, and somehow Roger manages anyways. Freddie brings one hand up to Roger’s cheek, and at that moment Roger feels something break.

“Because I was scared of what you’d think if you knew I wanted to,” he finally admits past a lump in his throat, and closes his eyes in surrender. 

There is no coming back from it now. It’s done.

He feels Freddie breathe.

And then he feels Freddie lean his forehead against his own, their noses brushing together, and he forgets how to breathe on his own.

“So was I,” Fred whispers.

Jocie gives them a smile as a greeting, wiping the bar with a dirty rag, and navigating around the sleeping drunkards on the floor.

“A couple of folks left earlier this morning,” she tells them when she sets their breakfast down on the table. “I can swap your room to a double bed if you fancy.” 

Roger ducks his head and shoves a forkful of egg into his mouth to hide his smile.

“Nah, it’s alright,” Freddie says, and under the table his knee bumps against Roger’s. 

“This one is good.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! and dont hesitate to leave a comment and let me know what you think, i thrive on those ashjfhd


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